Overwatch’s first Experimental Mode has ended on March 3, putting an abrupt end to the Triple Damage game type.
In a post on the official forums, Community Manager Molly Fender wrote that Triple Damage experiment had concluded and the card had been removed from the in-game client.
“Thank you for all your feedback about Triple Damage (1-3-2) in the Experimental mode over the past week,” she wrote. “We’ve been reading through all of your thoughts, ideas, and feedback – its immensely helpful!”
She added: “[the] Experimental will come back at a later date for testing of other balance updates, rulesets, and game modes.”
“The next time Experimental becomes available, it may be something entirely different,” another developer, Josh Nash, teased.
Game Director Jeff Kaplan also weighed in on the future of the Experimental mode in a post on February 25.
“Once the card comes down, the next changes coming to it will most likely be balance changes,” he said, noting that things like Triple Damage will be ‘rare.’
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He also provided some insight as to when the next card could be appearing: “I would expect the card to come up ‘every few weeks’ and stay up for a few days.”
However, in another reply, he indicated that the card could seemingly show up “with little to no warning” so don’t expect a big announcement next time an Experimental Card shows up.
Triple Damage was a mode that was initially tested internally at Blizzard where teams were reworked to consist of three DPS heroes, one tank and two supports instead of the standard compositions consisting of two of each.
As part of the experiment, all the tanks aside from Wrecking Ball received reworks with Zarya and Roadhog being the most changed. Hog was modified to have his Take a Breather ability heal teammates while Zarya’s Projected Barrier applied to all friendlies within a small radius.
Notably, the test was conducted to see if it could improve queue times. Since the introduction of 2-2-2 role queue, the DPS queues have been the most popular and, as such, those wanting to play damage end up waiting a long time to find a match.
It will be interesting to see what the developers end up cooking up for the next experimental card and what balance changes they’ll look to test in the near future.
